Milan, Olympics-themed murals and street art at the Village of Flowers

Street art with an Olympics theme: it’s happening at the Villaggio dei Fiori in Milan where, from July 23 to 25 and from August 2 to 6, 2021, a popular neighborhood will be colored thanks to the expressive power of Writing and Street Art. This is the goal of the CORBA -5CERCHI- project, which, with the artistic direction of Stradedarts, intends to redevelop the neighborhood. Starting next July 23, with the first murals by SteReal and Napal, and continuing in August when, starting on the 2nd, artists KayOne and Etsom will be seen at work, the CORBA event will color, until 2026, 38 facades all the same with as many unique and diverse works of art.

Ten interventions are planned for 2021, to be followed in subsequent years by the remaining 28, with the idea and desire to conclude the work by 2026, the year in which Milan will host the Winter Olympics together with Cortina d’Ampezzo. The artists involved will in fact be called upon to interpret and conceive an urban artwork with a winter sports theme, marking, each with their own stylistic signature, the individual facades of the Village of Flowers. The Palaghiaccio Agorà located not far away, in Via dei Ciclamini, on the occasion of the 2026 Winter Olympics will be used as a training ground for all the international teams involved in the Olympic Games: it will therefore be a focal point of attraction, capable of guaranteeing a large influx of spectators, effectively transforming the district into a central place of interest for sportsmen, fans and the curious.

The main purpose of CORBA -5CERCHI- is therefore to realize a participatory public art project, aimed at the urban, cultural and social redevelopment of a marginal and peripheral area, with the goal of transforming the historic Milan neighborhood into a unique district of contemporary urban art, capable of involving local communities and neighborhood associations. A district characterized, therefore, by 38 facades geometrically and structurally all the same but that, thanks to the intervention of as many famous street artists of the contemporary scene, will be able to become 38 works of art all different.

Historically, the Village of Flowers was born in 1953 out of the emergency of creating housing that could accommodate war evacuees and people who had come to the city from the countryside in search of work: thus, the municipal townhouses, known as “minimum houses,” were born adjacent to it, built on lots that had not yet been built on. These are houses arranged on two floors with a small back garden, the image of which today is that of a marginal place, forgotten and disconnected from the city, a place without identity and with serious housing hardship. Participatory redevelopment can be a first step in uniting and implementing a shared project that can generate interest on an urban and territorial scale. Making an abandoned and alienating place unique, putting color on gray.

Since 1988 Stradedarts has been engaged in the area adjacent to Via Giambellino with works that for years have changed the appearance of this area, consolidating a long history and defining its identity, linked to the world of Graffiti Writing and Street Art. Site-specific work that in the 1980s has also redeveloped degraded areas devoted to drug dealing and petty crime, run-down and debased areas, to which Stradedarts has brought color and presence, as well as hope for a different and better future. What’s more, PPG, a multinational paint and coatings company, in light of the QUA - Quattordio Urban Art project held in Quattordio at the end of June, will also bring a touch of color to this community using its PPG Sigma Coatings brand products.

This work still continues not only in Milan but throughout Italy, but always with the inspiration-guide to continue the work especially in the area where the Stradedarts association was born and proudly maintains its headquarters. CORBA -5CERCHI- was born with this in mind, as an event that could leave a permanent mark in the neighborhood, once again bringing color and joy to a forgotten place devoid of any kind of public use, a place that, also by talking to the residents, would be experienced as social redemption and felt belonging to the community.

Milan, Olympics-themed murals and street art at the Village of Flowers

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